There are kayakers in the river this morning. I don't see them but hear a warning call about it on VHF 67 for river traffic. I love kayaking, have one, but why would anyone in their right mind want to kayak the Mississippi river right now--with all this work boat traffic? The transmission launches quite a response from various boats. One captain, it must be a tug, proclaims with the cajun proclivity to pronounce certain t's as d's, "Das about da dummest thing I seen."
Below the head of passes, it's mostly marsh and pasture where cows graze on both banks, sometimes appearing on sandy beaches. Crewboats like mine are generally the fastest boats plying river waters, save the occasional small speed boat which may pass us by. We do around 25 knots going down, depending on load or commodities on board. We'll make about 19 coming up. With a planing hull, meaning the forward part of the boat climbs out of the water at top speed, we also produce the greatest wake, which is a constant concern these days and leads to lots of clutch-ahead driving at 7 knots--and to frequent bickering over the radio, a tug captain sitting idle watching workers on a barge must have little else to do than complain about someone's wake. The larger, displacement-hulled work-boats make around 12 knots and produce very little wake. The container ships and tankers produce almost no wake, although they will suck water from the banks.
Offshore, immense stretches of sea are now an emulsion of oil and water, a muckish brown and black, a sickening miasma. BP's latest effort to cap the well has left an unfettered spew at the base of Mississippi Canyon, and its no longer a creeping sheen on top, its one with the water. I see dolphins for the first time swimming in the mixture, as I'm stuck pumping water offshore to the same platform, we're here every day. We got the #3 engine fixed after the fire, but this morning we lost the #4, a ruptured water line to the turbo. It's down until we get a new pipe. Alex spots a blue crab at the surface. We're in 350 feet of water. We realize we haven't seen a school of fish in days. Its the greatest environmental disaster in the history of the land, is it? But that would be the arrival of the white man.
I can't walk the boat to starboard without the #4, and the current has completely swapped and comes at us from the east. We spent last week sterning into the elements, the easiest way; now the current is pushing me into the platform. I crank up the bow thruster and let it go. We try not to use it when guys are sleeping, but everyone's up and I wouldn't have a choice anyway being down an engine. I try to follow radio news, turn up the volume, more US soldiers dead in Afghanistan. Soon the sound bleeds into the rumble of the thruster while the current screams like we're in the river. I've got the bow thruster wide open, just to keep the boat off the platform leg. It's rattling everything, making it impossible to hear the radio, and the sun is glaring in my face. I'm starting to sweat, and it all pisses me off. I'm angry for the first time in awhile.
Soon we're done and on the way in, and then good news: someone announces on channel 16 that BP has capped the well. It's no longer flowing. Its day 86. At the head of passes--one of the widest spots along the Mississippi, there's something small in the river moving across. It must be an animal, almost mid-channel. I pull the throttles back to give it more time, and its a coyote crossing the river at a good clip. He must be eying the opposite field of cows.
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